A Rare Golf Outing With Groupon

I wouldn’t be doing my Golf Like You’re Poor job if I didn’t take a short break from my current “day job” duties and write up this tip: Keep your eye on Groupon.

I know: it’s rare that Groupon comes with a deal relating to golf. But once it does, it’s highly worth it.

First off, and briefly because I think most of you know this, Groupon is an e-commerce site on the Internet that generates “deals” and coupons for geographic-specific locations. Most popularly, Groupon has a free application downloaded to a smartphone. The “coupon” that’s purchased can be contained on the smartphone and presented “paperless” at the time of redemption.

Since I’ve been following Groupon for the past year, I’ve seen two or three offers relating to golf. They’ve been good, but this latest was a whopper. It came along at a time when my friend told me he wanted to play golf while he was in town and his wife and daughter were off to a baby shower.

A golf course near my home offered a deal through Groupon that allows 50 percent off a weekend green fee (even though I don’t normally ride carts, the friends I’ll be playing with that weekend do, and this deal throws in the cart). It’s a course that’s challenging enough that can stretch to almost 7,000 yards with a slope rating at 139. Usually in pretty good shape, too, though I’ll be interested to see how it’s held up in our drought.

We had been looking at similarly rated courses, and to play them would have cost more than $90 per player. We’re paying $28 each through the Groupon. Higher rated courses in town would have cost beyond $100 and even $200. But I think I’ve found value, and I’m quite happy to play Golf Like You’re Poor.

You can find other articles like this on the Tim Price Sports Books website. You can also follow Tim on Twitter @golflikeurpoor.

So, I see Elk and the "The Big Show" are committed to play in San Antonio for the Champions Tour AT&T Championship. My advice, Elk, is that you beat Calc here, because he got a primo parking spot for his mammoth rig last year. The guys here looked like they were on a tarmac when Calc, caddy and dogs rolled into town.